James Van Dyne

🍫 As we're reading Charlie and the Chocolate Factory before bed, I tried to see if Leo would watch the original and to my surprise, he watched all of it! He's a huge fan of the oompa loompas. As we're still reading the book, he's remembering the dialogue from the movie and repeating it.🍂 We had the first states of autumn in Kanto over the weekend with a low of 20 degrees. It felt fantastic and, despite me not drinking pumpkin spice lattes, I found myself wanting a pumpkin spice latte. It's…

⚽️ Ted Lasso is back on (🎉). I'm very glad it's been renewed and given he's coaching the women's team in Richmond, it opens an entire new storyline. The first 3 episodes have been fantastic.🍕 We had one of Leo's classmates and family over pizza and it was a success. It was nice to be able to talk with other foreign parents about school, raising families in Japan and the like. I also have a sudden unexplained urge to visit Sri Lanka. Maybe a good use for the miles I've been accumulating.🧽 The…

🔗 They're Made out of Meat Rather than say something was/was not written by AI, should we instead say it was "made by meat 🍖". I kinda like it...Comment by email

💤 Jet lag coming back was brutal. Waking up at 2am after 5 hours sleep feeling fully rested is great...until about 3pm. Fully covered now though.🐪 Since Leo went to the British Museum and saw the ancient Egyptian artifacts, he's been on a bit of (his first!) history kick. To encourage this wider range of thinking, we found that a museum with high quality replicas in Yokohama called Mystery of Tutankhamen and made a visit. It was pretty cool. While looking about I also learned that Leo knows how…

📍 ツタンカーメン・ミュージアム Location: Yokohama, Kanagawa Prefecture, JapanComment by email

Travel Europe by Tram is the perfect show when it's 4am and you're jet lagged. Well done NHK 👏Comment by email

🇬🇧 English classes went well for Leo. He is motivated to learn and speak English. While playing Switch at the hotel, he even started speaking to himself in English, "I hate lynel... because they are strong", which is perhaps the longest sentence I've heard him speak in English. By the end of the program he was playing with kids in the park, as kids do.🛝 The Diana Memorial Playground re-opened and we were able to visit the opening weekend! I hadn't realized that Heer's bench was directly in…

📍 Singapore Airlines SilverKris Lounge Heading homeLocation: Hillingdon, Greater London, United KingdomComment by email

📍 The Engineer Love a pub Location: London, Greater London, United KingdomComment by email

📍 Diana Memorial Playground Opening weekend after it being closed for renewal. So good! Location: London, Greater London, United KingdomComment by email

📍 Hamleys A visit to the toy store for a job well done. Location: London, Greater London, United KingdomComment by email

✈️ We flew to the UK – work for me and a week long english course for Leo. The flight itself was smooth as can be with ANA. While Leo didn't really watch movies on the console this time about, instead he played his switch and piano in Garageband.🇬🇧 Escaping the humidity of Japan has been nice, but it's been 31 degrees during the day here as well. And it hasn't rained in a month, so parks that are usually full of green grass are brown. The mornings are still glorious. We went to the Diana…

📍 Three Uncles Tasty noodles and rice with porkLocation: London, Greater London, United KingdomComment by email

📍 Marylebone Green Playground Perfect weather Location: London, Greater London, United KingdomComment by email

📍 Science Museum Playing games before visiting the actual museum.Location: London, Greater London, United KingdomComment by email

📍 Hyde Park Location: London, Greater London, United KingdomComment by email

Regents Park jet lag runLovely to run in cool and low humidity situations. Saw some foxes too 🦊Comment by email 5.0km 34.7min 14.7m climbed avg bpm

📍 London Heathrow Airport (LHR) Long ass flightLocation: London, Greater London, United KingdomComment by email

📍 ANA LOUNGE Off to LHR 🇬🇧. Had me curry but forgot to take a photo.Location: Tokyo, Tokyo Prefecture, JapanComment by email

📍 Taiho Ramen (大砲ラーメン 天神今泉店) Location: Fukuoka, Fukuoka, JapanComment by email

📚 Before bed each night we read to Leo. This week we started having reading time where we all read together for 10 - 15 minutes before we read to him. After a couple of weeks, we finished reading Matilda. I haven't read the book since I was in the 5th grade and mostly relied on the movie/play for my recollections of the story, but it did end differently than the movie. (Spoiler alert!) Not by a huge amount, but they did not have the adoption papers ready to go.⛺️ I tried to sell the tent and…

🌊 Summer vacation started with a 3-day weekend in Japan (Marine Day). We spent the half of the day in Kamakura. Blue Bottle opened a new cafe in area so we decided to pop in for an iced beverage and some reading time. Afterwards while wondering around looking for lunch we went to Muji Cafe for the first time. Looking back, this visit really speaks gentrification of Kamakura, especially on the komachi dori side of things...but also the spaces were big and easy to get seating at.📚 I finished…

Monday ActivityEven in darkness the suffering continues 🥵. 31c 70% humidity 8pm. At least this should make autumn runs feel easy in comparison.Comment by email 4.4km 32.5min 14.2m climbed avg bpm

📍 MUJI com Lunch 😋 Location: Kamakura, Kanagawa Prefecture, JapanComment by email

📍 BLUE BOTTLE COFFEE KAMAKURA CAFE (ブルーボトルコーヒー 鎌倉カフェ) Enjoying a cold brew in this heat. Location: Kamakura, Kanagawa Prefecture, JapanComment by email

🎯 Using OmniFocus and GTD has really helped me get more organized at work and at home. Things I would continually forget, remember, tell myself I'll do in 10 minutes, then subsequently forget about are actually getting done. It's been really good.One area that I think it's a game changer for me at work is being able to explicitly track waiting for/delegated tasks with dates. Not that I couldn't do this before by writing notes or adding things to calendars, but I can create a custom perspective…

🍿 We saw Toy Story 5 in English. What a film, perhaps my favorite one yet? The writers really do hit the nail on the head about the challenges that parenting in the world of prolific screens provides. How do you balance between keeping your kid engaged with the real world and socialising with their friends (when a lot of that starts to happen online). And when every kid is a dopamine addicted iPad kid...how do you find that balance? (The answer is enforced boundaries, but that gets harder and…

📍 Yokohama Burg 13 (横浜ブルク13) Toy Story 5!Location: Yokohama, Kanagawa Prefecture, JapanComment by email

📍 mango tree cafe 😋 Location: Kawasaki, Kanagawa Prefecture, JapanComment by email

Saturday ActivityHumid hills. 🥵Comment by email 4.3km 31.5min 53.8m climbed avg bpm